Serbia’s Adriana Vilagos smashed her world U18 javelin best on home soil with the 500g implement at the Balkan U18 Championships in Kraljevo on Saturday (14).
Vilagos held the previous best mark with 68.76m but the 17-year-old added more than a metre to that mark, surpassing the 70 metre-line for the first time with 70.10m to further extend her record in what could be one of her last competitions with the U18 implement.
Despite still being classed as an U18 athlete by virtue of her 2004 birthdate, Vilagos has already got to grips with the senior weight javelin which is also used in U20 competitions. At the start of the season, Vilagos won the U23 division at the European Throwing Cup in Split, Croatia with 60.22m despite ceding five years in age to some of her competitors.
Vilagos also won a silver medal at the Tallinn 2021 European Athletics U20 Championships in Tallinn behind Greece’s Elina Tzengko and the duo are due to go head-to-head again at the World Athletics U20 Championships in Nairobi which begin on Wednesday (18).
Other highlights from the Balkan U18 Championships included Slovenia’s Jakob Urbanc winning the hammer with a national U20 record of 74.12m, Greece’s Nikoleta Antoniadou winning the 100m hurdles in a Greek U20 record of 13.67 and Bulgaria’s Plamena Mitkova winning the long jump with a wind-aided 6.29m.
Elsewhere around Europe…
After only finishing ninth at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, world leader Johannes Vetter returned to victorious form at his home track in Offenburg in Germany on Sunday (15).
Vetter threw 86.17m to defeat reigning world champion Anderson Peters from Grenada with 85.85m. Czech Republic’s European silver medallist Nikoleta Ogrodnikova won the women’s competition with 60.40m.
At the Wieslaw Maniak Memorial meeting in Szczecin, Poland on Saturday (15), Great Britain’s Reece Prescod had one of his best competitions since returning from injury.
The European 100m silver medallist achieved a sprint double, winning the 100m in 10.20 before winning the 200m in a lifetime best of 20.31.
Pia Skrzyszowska switched from the hurdles to the flat and the European U23 100m hurdles champion also took a sprint double, winning the 100m in 11.41 and the 200m in a lifetime best of 23.05.
A part of Poland’s victorious team in the mixed 4x400m relay at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Katejan Duszynski and Dariusz Kowaluk set lifetime bests of 45.34 and 45.44 in the individual 400m and Brit Harry Coppell defeated Piotr Lisek in the pole vault, 5.60m to 5.50m.
In Andorf, Austria on Saturday (14), Olympic discus bronze medallist Lukas Weisshaidinger threw 63.88m for victory on home soil and European champion Ramil Guliyev from Türkiye won the 200m in 20.47.
There was also a fitting home victory for Beate Schrott who won the 100m hurdles in 13.12, her last race before retirement. Schrott won a bronze medal at the 2012 European Championships in Helsinki and also reached the Olympic final and world indoor final in the same season.
Fresh from winning a bronze medal in the pole vault at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Holly Bradshaw cleared 4.53m off an abbreviated approach at the Welsh Championships in Cardiff on Sunday (15).
In Zlin on Saturday (14), Dominik Zalesky won the 100m in 10.16 to equal the Czech record.